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Topic: external hard disks (Read 4968 times)

I have some storage problems (and have seen that increase mi pc hard drives again and again is not a good option). Could you recommend me external hard drives for stock? I'm thinking in 6 TB and several years of use. This is important to me, my external units have worked for years and intense use with no problems (seagate and iomega, about ten years and hard work -one have started to make some noise) but I need a better one as my main drive and would keep the others as backup. I don't want a very expensive one, if possible.

For my serious work, I use a 96TB drive though. These 12TB drives are on my wife's laptop, one for external storage and a second one for TimeMachine. (I haven't decided what to do yet when that TM is no longer large enough -- ran out of space on a 8TB TM last month...)

As a general comment, i prefer to buy smaller that currently trending opacities.E.g. this summer 4Tb of (personal favour) WD "mybook" and "elements" prices droppped 30%Takes some more time to double data in two HDDs but assuming that when full they will sit on the shelter, and a new couple of disks will replace them,perhaps it's the most economic way.

For my serious work, I use a 96TB drive though. These 12TB drives are on my wife's laptop, one for external storage and a second one for TimeMachine. (I haven't decided what to do yet when that TM is no longer large enough -- ran out of space on a 8TB TM last month...)

I prefer to use smaller disks, as main disks and as backup disks. If a smaller disk fails the risk to lose a huge quantity of data is less.

For my serious work, I use a 96TB drive though. These 12TB drives are on my wife's laptop, one for external storage and a second one for TimeMachine. (I haven't decided what to do yet when that TM is no longer large enough -- ran out of space on a 8TB TM last month...)

I prefer to use smaller disks, as main disks and as backup disks. If a smaller disk fails the risk to lose a huge quantity of data is less.

Quite right and also you can back up finished stock photos on to cloud based storage too

I highly recommend you also use online backup. I use backblaze.com. Recently my computer had a power failure and shutdown abruptly which caused my external hard drive to become unresponsive. After I turned my computer back on, I couldn't figure out how to mount my external hard drive despite hours of google search. So I spent about a week non-stop downloading 3TB of data from cloud backup.

I buy two of whatever the current WD MyBook drives that are around $80 or so. I just bought two 2TB at Best Buy for $70 each. Takes me about six months to fill them (one is a backup of the other). Never had an issue.

The brands seem to be a lottery. Some brands have no issues in one size and the other disks have a lot more problems (in the tests I mean). I have used cheap disks for ten years with intense use and no problems at all.

I highly recommend you also use online backup. I use backblaze.com. Recently my computer had a power failure and shutdown abruptly which caused my external hard drive to become unresponsive. After I turned my computer back on, I couldn't figure out how to mount my external hard drive despite hours of google search. So I spent about a week non-stop downloading 3TB of data from cloud backup.

Which validates the opinions of people who say use redundant local backup?

Just because you didn't find something on Google, doesn't mean it doesn't exist? There are plenty of storage recovery tools available. Some might have cost you $50 would take overnight to recover all your data.

Sounds like you lost the table of contents, which means all your data was still there, just no way for the computer to identify and find it. Sad but, yes, your sudden power fai;lure would be a likely cause, if the TOC was being written at that moment. Terrible mess, bad luck.

Yea I'm sure someone smarter than me could have figured out how to mount my non working external hard drive. Since I couldn't figure it out, online cloud backup still saved my butt. Also remember online backup also helps in event of fire or theft.

I buy two of whatever the current WD MyBook drives that are around $80 or so. I just bought two 2TB at Best Buy for $70 each. Takes me about six months to fill them (one is a backup of the other). Never had an issue.

Totally agree, the Western Digital (WD) My Book series are very reliable and affordable. I have used every size up to 8TB without any problem and plan to buy 3 larger ones this year.